xix, 350 pages : 25 cm

"A Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy book."Includes index. Bibliography: p. 325-339

"A Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy book."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 325-339) and index

I. Framework : 1. Sources of big government: a critical survey of hypotheses : Explanation of the growth of government : Modernization ; Public goods ; The welfare state ; Political redistribution ; Ideology ; Crisis -- 2. How much has government grown? Conventional measures and alternative view : Conventional measures of the growth of government ; The essence of big government: an alternative view ; Ratchets: conventional measures versus fundamentals -- 3. On ideology as an analytical concept in the study of political economy : What is ideology? ; Ideology and political action ; Ideology in analysis ; Ideology in rhetoric ; Ideology: exogenous and endogenous? -- 4. Crisis, bigger government, and ideological change: toward an understanding of the ratchet : A schematic view of the problem ; Why stage II? A cost-concealment hypothesis ; Why stage IV? A (partial) hypothesis on ideological change ; Recapitulation: why the ratchet? ; The task ahead -- II. History : 5. Crisis under the old regime, 1893-1896 : Creative destruction ideologically sustained, 1865-1893 ; Depression and social unrest, 1893-1896 ; Saving the gold standard ; Maintaining law and order in the labor market ; Striking down the income tax -- 6. The progressive era: a bridge to modern times : Economic development and political change, 1898-1916 ; The ideological winds shift ; End and beginning: the railroad labor troubles, 1916-1917 -- 7. The political economy of war, 1916-1918

Neutral prosperity and the shipping crisis ; The preparedness controversy and new governmental powers ; War and conscription ; Manipulating the market economy: the major agencies ; Labor problems and the railroad takeover ; Supreme court rulings on war measures ; Legacies, institutional and ideological -- 8. The Great Depression : "an emergency more serious than war" : Economic rise and fall, 1922-1933 ; What did Hoover do? ; Interregnum of despair ; Emergency, emergency! ; Planting the first new deal: the hundred days ; Cultivating and pruning the first new deal: the supreme court ; Legacies, institutional and ideological -- 9. The political economy of war, 1940-1945 : De jure neutrality, de facto belligerency, 1939-1941 ; More powers and price controls ; The armed forces and the economy ; Work or fight ; The supreme court also goes to war ; Legacies, institutional and ideological -- 10. Crisis and leviathan: from World War II to the 1980s : The mixed economy: march into socialism or fascism? ; Crisis and leviathan: the recent episodes -- 11. Retrospect and prospect

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